John Greene (d. 1660)

He was a Presbyterian Reformed minister, and active member of the Westminster Assembly.

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“Indifference in Religion is the next step to apostatizing from Religion.”

His Works:

Mr. Greene wrote and published a sermon which is entitled, “Nehemiah’s tears and prayers for Judah’s affliction, and the ruins and repair of Jerusalem.” This sermon was preached from Neh. 1:3-4, in the church of Margaret, Westminster, before the house of commons, upon the day of their monthly humiliation. He also published, “The First Man, or, A Short Discourse of Adam’s State,” as well as a sermon on “The Church’s Duty for Received Mercies,” on 1 Samuel 12:24, “Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth, with all your heart; for consider what great things he hath done for you.”

Biography of John Greene (d. 1660):

John Greene (d. 1660), was Pastor of Pencombe, a Presbyterian and Reformed minister, and a member of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. Not much is known about him, except for the following:

He received a liberal education, and was eminently learned and pious. He was sometime pastor of Pencombe, in the county of Hereford; and he carefully fed his people with knowledge, and warned them of danger. He was much against the unhallowed book of sports. The appearance of that declaration was a great grievance to him, and he freely expressed his sentiments on the subject. In his sermon from Nehemiah 1:3-4, which he preached to the house of commons, he says, “they were my meditations upon the coming forth of that book for that sinful liberty on the Lord’s Day, (and I did not forbear to express them) when I too often heard, in neighboring parishes, drums beating up for a marrice or a may-pole on that day, we had just cause to fear, lest the lord should punish that sin, with beating up drums for a march on that day and the lord,” (Life and Writings of John Greene, 365). He continued, “Hath these brought our fears upon us. How many marclies have been on that day, since the beginning of these wars? I have long thought it one of the highest provoking sins of this land.” Mr. Greene seems, with others, to have considered the Lord of hosts, as punishing that general and leading sin, the heaven-daring profanation of the Lord’s Day, by the mournful battle at Kineton, or Edgehill, on that day. He adds, “But I hope those many ordinances for suppressing this profaneness will be a good means, through God’s mercy, to quench our unnatural flames, if to good laws, which are the life of a state, be added careful execution, which is the life of laws.”

In 1643, Mr. Greene was chosen one of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster; and he is in Mr. Neal’s list marked as giving constant attendance. He often preached to the parliament. According to Dr. Calamy, he died in the very week that he was preparing to quit his living on the Bartholomew Act, in 1660.

Taken in part from James Reid’s work, “Memoirs of the Lives and Writings of Those Eminent Divines…” (Paisley: Steven and Andrew Young, 1811), page 364, and also Thomas Smith’s work, “Select Memoirs of the Scottish and English Divines” (Puritan Publications: Coconut Creek, 2012), page 571.